Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Recipe: Kheer

CategoryDessertRegionNorthern and Central IndiaAlso Called Payasam (in Southern India)Descriptive English Name Indian Rice PuddingServed Piping hot. Can also be refrigerated and served cold (not frozen).Serves 4Cooking Time 25 minutes

IntroductionIndia boasts of a variety of sweet desserts to pamper the sweet toothed. One of the most common desserts is a very simple preparation of rice and milk. This pudding, called "Kheer", is made with either toasted vermicelli or rice and is my favorite Indian dessert. No wedding or festival is complete without Kheer on the menu. This creamy and sweet stovetop pudding is fairly quick and easy to prepare.

Kheer recipes have evolved to suit regional and personal preferences. Every part of India has its own version of Kheer. The essential ingredients are milk and sugar, but you can vary your Kheer by replacing rice with vermicelli, semolina, and even carrot. Kheer made of almonds is also a popular variation.

Ingredients3 - 4 cups of whole milk, diluted with 1 - 2 cups of water (The proportion of water will determine the thickness of the Kheer.)
1 cup rice (it is best to use an Indian variety like basmati rice)
1 cup condensed milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon raisins
1 tablespoon of dry roasted cashew nut pieces. (Cashew nuts can be substituted with almonds or pistachio)
1 teaspoon finely powdered elaichi (cardamom) seeds

Method- Boil the rice in the milk on a medium flame until the rice is cooked.

- Make sure you stir frequently; otherwise your milk may burn at the bottom of the vessel.

Smart Tips- Give your Kheer a flavor of the East by sprinkling a few strands of saffron over it. You could also add slivered almonds and pistachios.

- If you do not want to slave in the kitchen, use cooked rice leftover from the previous meal. Make sure that your cooked rice did not have any salt in it.

- You can serve Kheer either piping hot or cold. Cold Kheer tastes divine with shavings of almonds and pistachios.

- If you are counting the calories, you can replace milk with a non-dairy product. Use sugar-free supplements instead of sugar and you have an instant low-cal dessert.

- Alternative natural sweeteners are honey and rice syrup.

At one extreme, Kheer can be as dense as shown in the adjoining picture. Usually Kheer is much more fluid than this, but some people prefer to keep cooking on low heat until the milk thickens. I prefer Kheer of a medium consistency, but my family members prefer very liquid Kheer -- the kind you could drink in a cup!

Note: Kheer recipes can be of many different types. Make sure to visit some of the other kheer recipes we have here:

19 comments:

Anonymous
said...

What a simple, elegant, and wholly delicious dessert. I ate it warm after my dinner, then cold for breakfast for the next two mornings -- a very versatile food, indeed! I'm looking forward to trying your other dishes. Perhaps you can mention a good biryani recipe? Also, I had some excellent gobi parathas while in Delhi. My attempts to approximate the recipe at home, unfortunately, have met only with mediocrity. Would love to read about your own version! Thanks for the culinary enlightenment!

Heh, i just came from India and i barely got the taste of the local foods (my friends live in UP and Nepal mainly)

I'm collecting recipes on my site http://www.left-online.com

Feel free to comment and post more if you find.

I'm a cooking fanatic and i just love to test on new stuff - and heh recently i've fallen totally into Indian cuisine which is largely unknown here in Europe (excluding the UK but we know that those treats are not the "real thing")

Oh yeah! i am sweet-toothed! I passed a lot of places where they sold sweets just because i didn't speak hindi! I didn't know how to ask "what's that" because some of those things were meant for pujas and were unedible! Luckily i'm going back soon and then i'll know a bit more... help appreciated. Especially with the recipes.

This was my first attempt at making anything "Indian"...I have had many Indian desserts and love most of them. So, I thought I would give this recipe a go. It turned out AMAZING, although a bit sweet. I used the whole can of condensed milk by mistake(300ml instead of 250ml)and I think that's where I went wrong. When I make this recipe again, I will still use the whole can of milk (no leftovers) and lessen the amount of sugar the recipe calls for. Other than that, this recipe was VERY easy to follow, but a little time consuming if you make the rice from scratch.

A few mistakes of mine for everyone else's benefit: it's 1 TEASPOON of cardamom (as the recipe says). I went too fast and added 1 tablespoon haha. Fortunately, it didn't diffuse very fast and I was able to scoop the heap of floating power off the top and remeasure.

I couldn't find roasted vermicelli, so I put 1 tbsp of butter in a pan and roasted a cup of vermicelli myself. (I wanted vermicelli bc the restaurant I enjoy kheer at uses vermicelli not basmati).

I am accustomed to a thick kheer, so I'm boiling and boiling and it is verrrrrry slow to thicken.

I don't like raisins, so I chopped some prunes. As I said, it's still cooking, but I took some of the liquid in a spoon and the taste is great.

So far it looks like it's going to taste great--this is an excellent recipe (my only modification was the prune substitution). Definitely a keeper.